


Who Needs Protection?

by imagineagreatadventure



Series: JB Appreciation Week 2016 [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, F/M, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-18 06:13:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8151878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagineagreatadventure/pseuds/imagineagreatadventure
Summary: Brienne finds herself in the midst of a zombie apocalypse in the middle of a first date.JB Week Day 3 Protection





	

The red lines streaked across the man’s face indicated that something was  _ off  _ before he even started trying to eat her annoying blind date. They were streaks of blood, Brienne realized later, but when she had stared at him, watching as his disturbed gaze settled on Ronnet Connington, she had actually thought they were pen marks. 

She had been too far away to see the truth.

That the man wasn’t a man at all.

That he was a **_zombie._**

* * *

Four days later, the zombie apocalypse had spread across the south of the Seven Republics. While the North had their legendary zombies of ice (according to the ancient tales Brienne’s brother used to tell her when she wanted to hear scary stories late at night), the South’s zombies were made up of flesh and bone.

There were rumors the zombies were not stupid but sentient, but Brienne couldn’t pay that idea any mind. The idea of sentient creatures running around willingly spreading their viral infection and eating other people was more horrifying than the idea that people turned to mindless animalistic creatures when they were exposed.

Oldtown doctors and scientists were hurriedly trying to find the cure, but the persistent rumor is that one of Oldtown’s own people released the virus into the world, causing any survivors to doubt if a cure would ever be released. 

Brienne had a suspicion she knew exactly who did it. 

* * *

Dr. Qyburn stared at her, a pleasant smile on his face. “How may I help you, Miss Tarth?”

She was standing on his doorstep in Oldtown covered in another woman’s blood and had no time for pleasantries. Although she did wonder how he was still alive when so many were not. “What did you do?”

He waved a hand. “I do not know what you mean.”

The man was just as infuriating when he was her boss years before when she was an intern at a lab studying the effects of chemical weapons and he was her supervisor. Before he joined the Seven Republics Institute of Health in Oldtown. “This has to be you,” she said, “you’ve always wanted to do this.” 

“Come inside, Miss Tarth, or you’ll catch your death.” 

Brienne glanced around the empty street. All the houses were boarded up and there was not a soul (living or undead) in sight. She couldn’t even hear any dogs or cats and wondered why that was. “Fine.”

She almost immediately regretted doing so when she saw Jaime Lannister in Qyburn’s sitting room. Tied up with tape over his mouth. His eyes widened when he saw her and he started shouting incoherently.

“Do not worry,” Qyburn remarked, stepping by her side. “I will not be needing such measures with you. He tried to shoot me.”

Jaime snarled.

Brienne wished she had a gun, but settled for her fists, punching Qyburn in the nose, and then kicking him in the groin. “I wish I did that years ago,” she growled, while Jaime made even more noise. She turned around to tell him to be quiet but landed face to face with a giant zombie.

He had to have giant ancestry or something. He had to because although she and everyone else in her family had been tall, no one was as tall and broad as this man, who easily lifted her up and  _ pulled _ .

Brienne screamed and her only coherent thought through the immense fiery pain was that at least he hadn’t bit her.

“That’s quite enough, Gregor,” she heard Qyburn said below. “Just tie her up like Mr. Lannister here, that’s a good lad.”

Suddenly she was placed down on the chair next to Jaime while Qyburn tutted. Brienne felt as if she was near to passing out and so allowed the zombie to do Qyburn’s bidding. She could feel Jaime’s gaze on her and wish she could apologize, wished she could have protected him from Qyburn and this zombie but how could she know any of this? How could she know that the idiot she hung out with during her time at medical school  would be here when he should have been in the Westerlands with his sister?

“Gregor here was a janitor at Oldtown Institute of Health. He proved to be the best subject for the test, considering his brute strength - he was incarcerated before he worked there, you know,” Qyburn said, folding his hands. “Although, unlike the other zombies, his consciousness is, well, not there. It was a basic bacterial infection then - when I tested it on him.”

“They know what they’re doing?” Brienne asked, grateful there wasn’t tape over her mouth. Yet.

“At first, not very much, no. But as the body grows accustomed to the bacteria, don’t get too excited, Miss Tarth, antibiotics can only do so much for our friends in this condition - this is a complicated bacteria that can hide when being attacked.  In any case, the subjects’ minds learns to adjust and is more aware of what they’re doing, allow themselves to know that they are now cannibalistic creatures.”

Brienne felt sick and wondered if Qyburn would insist on cleaning her up if she vomited over herself. She doubted it. The one time that sort of thing happened in their lab, it was Jaime who threw up after insisting he wasn’t sick, and Qyburn made Brienne clean up all of it. Without gloves.

She should have quit then. She should have reported him. If he had been reported he wouldn’t be doing this. There wouldn’t be any zombies. 

“Why did you do this?” Brienne heard herself ask.

Qyburn smiled. “Why not?” He started to leave, “Come, Gregor, I’d like you to do a patrol. See if anyone else is left in their house on this street. If they are, bring them to me. I’d like to give Miss Tarth and Mr. Lannister a demonstration of how the bacteria works.”

“No!” Brienne said, but they both left the room without listening. Without hearing.

Without caring.

Jaime said something under the tape. “Hold on,” Brienne said. Jaime continued to mumble. “For the love of the Seven, Lannister, shut up, I’m trying to think of something.”

The only thing she could think of made her simultaneously sick and giddy. “Just... I’m sorry ok,” she said before she leaned over. 

He looked confused and when she suddenly got stuck, unable to move any closer to his face, she could feel red spreading all over her body. “I’m trying to get the tape off your mouth with my mouth,” she said, as clinically as she could. Brienne regretted not finishing her medical degree now. Maybe she would have been able to say that without blushing if she hadn’t let Qyburn ruin her appetite for medical research. 

Jaime raised his eyebrows and then winked causing her to almost regret attempting to take the tape off at all. “You’re going to have to lean forward,” she whispered, aware that Qyburn or Gregor could walk in at any moment. 

Jaime obeyed her command, possibly too excited at the idea of being able to speak and mock and laugh to attempt to speak or mock or laugh at her idea. She leaned forward as far as she possibly could and was grateful when she realized she could reach his face.

Although it was hard to concentrate on the tape with Jaime’s eyes boring into her. Reaching over, she tried tearing at one of the corners with her teeth and, instead, bit Jaime. “I’m sorry!” she whispered-wailed, as he flinched.

“Can I try again?” Brienne asked and Jaime nodded. She wished her hands were free so that she could just rip the damn tape off, but instead, she leaned over him again, almost feeling that she was about to kiss him. 

That made her more nervous and she almost bit him but kept steady, s omehow managing to grab the tape with her top teeth, almost grateful that her family couldn’t afford braces after all, because she wasn’t sure she’d be able to do this with non-buck teeth. As the corner peeled, she let go, hoping it would stay up and away from Jaime’s face. 

It did much to her immense relief. “I’m going to reach over again,” she told Jaime, who rolled his eyes as if saying  _ ‘just get it over with’.  _

She smiled at him, for a moment, and then concentrated on grabbing that corner. She pulled at it and Jaime winced. Once again, she wished she could just rip the thing off and end it, but instead she kept pulling slow and steady, until finally, she could see his lips. 

His stupidly beautiful lips that were curving into a delicious smile. “So,” Jaime said, ignoring how the tape that was still stuck to the other half of his face was flapping, “how the fuck do we get out of here?”

She almost shivered at his voice, she hadn’t heard it in so long that she forgot its effect. But then she remembered that they were probably about to die and that cooled off any amorous feelings. “We need to get ourselves untied and out of these chairs.”

“No shit,” he said without any malice. “I’ve been attempting to get out of this chair for ages, my wrists are probably as red as your face.”

Brienne glared at him. “I’m regretting getting the tape off your mouth already.”

He just grinned.

* * *

In the end, it took Jaime’s mouth on the jump rope they tied up Brienne with to free her hands. “They tied you so loosely compared to me,” Jaime complained afterwards when Brienne was using her hands ( _ at last! freedom! _ ) to untie him.

“What do we do once we get out of here?” she asked him, thinking of how the zombies were overtaking the rest of Oldtown. Ronnet’s face popped in her mind and she shuddered. He was awful enough as a human she didn’t want to meet him as a zombie.

Sentient or not he’d go after her in a minute.

“We go to the Internet,” he said. “Tell everyone that it was Qyburn and that it’s a bacterial infection. A complex one, apparently, but still a bacteria at its heart. We can at least nullify some of the symptoms with an antibiotic.”

“Did you finish your medical degree?” she asked, marveling at how official he sounded.

She could see him shake his head, his golden locks dancing behind him. “No, but I work for my father’s  pharmaceutical company.”

“I thought you hated pharmaceutical companies.”  _ And your father. _

“Not as much as I hated Qyburn by the end of our rotation there,” Jaime said. “Are you done yet or not?”

She gave the rope one last tug and it fell apart. Jaime wrenched his hands away from the back of the chair immediately. “Let’s go,” Jaime said, reaching over to help her up and she took his hand gladly, her knees aching from her position.

Looking side to side, they left the room and edged down the hall, looking out for Qyburn or Gregor. But the only sounds they heard came from upstairs, which Brienne assumed was Qyburn’s lab.

And so they left with little problem.

It wasn’t until they were outside that Brienne realized she and Jaime were still holding hands, their fingers tangled up together tighter than the knots that had kept them apart. She didn’t let go, although she almost wanted to, and when Jaime looked at her with a smile as they reached his stupid, ugly car, the same one he had back before they both left medical school, she smiled back, grateful they were alive, not caring about her buck teeth like she usually did when she smiled. Because those stupid teeth had saved them.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Jaime said, pulling her to him, looking up into her eyes. 

“And save the world,” she said, aware of how his gaze made her tingle inside. They stared at each long enough for Brienne to realize that time was quickly passing. “We really should get out of here before Qyburn realizes we’re gone.”

Jaime’s gaze was intense. “I really wish you weren’t right,” he said, almost methodically. But then a grin appeared as he squeezed her hand. The feel of his calluses made her tremble. "Then again, you’re always right.”

**Author's Note:**

> NGL I based the way the zombie bacteria works on Lyme disease (and the multitude of coinfections that it brings). Always check yourself for ticks bc that stuff never leaves your system!!! 
> 
> Now that my PSA is over (get it I'm protecting all of you), I hope you enjoyed it! I know my next few JB week fills are def. going to be late, but I'll try to be as timely as possible. :)
> 
> Also I think they'll have kisses to make up for the first three not having kisses (although this tease was more fun to write than a kiss scene tbh).


End file.
